Every Successful Journey Needs a Roadmap
How we take advantage of our employee experts to plan the future of our products.
Anyone who’s ever worked in the software space knows that product roadmap planning can be a tough process. But since it’s essential to the future of the company, it has to be done –– and it has to be done well.
That’s why at TEAM Software, we’ve evolved our roadmap planning process year after year to become something that’s efficient and effective, and unique to us. Here’s how it works.
TEAM’s Product Management group launches a discovery effort every year, where they pull together feedback from a variety of sources and identify common themes for consideration for the next year’s product roadmap. That information comes from market factors, compliance considerations and a significant amount of input from our customers.
But another key source in that discovery process is our TEAM employees. After all, who better to surface new enhancement ideas and identify opportunities to solve customer problems than the TEAM employees who interact with them every day? Product Management takes advantage of the experiences and feedback from employees spanning departments across the company, who already support, interact with and develop products for our existing and prospective customers.
“Gathering feedback and input from employees is a critical part of planning the initiatives for TEAM Software,” said Brianne Stephan, Product Manager. “It really helps to align goals across departments as we serve and support our customers and grow the business.”
Throughout the year, the product managers collect, share and discuss ideas. Then, they consolidate those ideas and present the resulting business initiatives in a company-wide exercise.
These interactive group sessions are designed to allow each participant the opportunity to provide input on initiatives they feel provide the most value to our customers. The process also serves as a forum for employees to share additional background information and context based on their personal customer interactions and/or technical expertise.
“TEAM appreciates all ideas from every department, which makes me feel very valuable,” said Samantha Richardson, Implementation Specialist. “Collaborating together as a company opens the doors for more ideas and feedback.”
The resulting internal validation from the exercise enables Product Management to put together a customer-centric roadmap that not only attracts new prospects, but also provides more value to TEAM’s existing customers.
“The interactions, positive energy and care for our products and customers throughout the year provides a great deal of inspiration in defining what’s next,” said Michelle Shanholtz, Vice President of Product Management. “This specific effort brings everyone together to continue to provide innovative solutions to our customer today and for years to come.”
Our roadmap planning process is a great way to stay engaged with our employee experts, but ultimately, it provides our customers with value and transparency and informs them about what’s coming next –– something that goes back to one of TEAM’s core values: Keep customers first.
